00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 47, easy answers. Aren't always right. I'm Joseph LCI. Hi from the stacking Benjamins podcast, I encourage you to find ways to be inspired, to find financial freedom. And one way I do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friends, her, And the truth is even knowing that you have this bias,
00:00:33 you have a tendency to still exhibit it, even if you're told about it. And you're told this is a specific example of it, we still have a tendency to show it. All of us do. It's part of the human condition. This is another reason to surround yourself with accountability, to surround yourself with independent decision makers. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.
00:01:00 If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true color. In the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can. And tonight's Saturday night special. I talk with you about why the quick and easy answer.
00:01:30 Isn't always the best one. I use an explain as cognitive bias known as the substitution bias and why this applies. And I talked to you about what you can do about this to help overcome it. Now, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really,
00:01:58 really tough. I've got a porous called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this, and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done. What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality,
00:02:29 because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type. But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com
00:02:52 slash launch all too often. Our brains try to always look for the easy answer. You know, the truth is that we are lazy creatures for lack of a better word. We, we have a tendency to shortcut our decision making. There's actually a fancy name for this. It's the attribution or substitution bias, depending on which set of papers you're reading,
00:03:24 that really captures a whole lot of different ways that our brain shortcuts decision-making, you know, basically what happens is we tend to look for the simplest answer. We even codified this in science. We talk about Ockham's razor, Ockham's razor. This idea of the easiest explanation, the simplest explanation is usually right. And there's truth to that. You know, often if you have to spend this long complex story to explain something,
00:04:00 then odds are good. There's a simpler story that would explain it just as well. But here, what I'm talking about is the idea that we have an intuitive brain. We have the ability to make snap judgements. And sometimes what happens to us is we'll make a simple decision based on the availability of information, based on the fact that we have certain beliefs,
00:04:25 we have certain histories, we have things that we know and things that we don't know. And because of that, we'll jump to a solution without actually stopping and thinking it through. We don't use our logical mind to slow ourselves down and think about it. And there's a benefit to this. This intuitive decision making is fast and it's easy. And so when it comes to things like our safety,
00:04:54 when it comes to making a decision about doing something, to protect ourselves, being able to make that decision quickly and easily, and unconsciously is important. It's a survival characteristic. But oftentimes when we apply that same decision making to other kinds of decisions, as an example of that, people were given a choice. They could purchase insurance. And this was shortly after the 2011 terrorist attacks here in America.
00:05:23 And so they were offered insurance while they were going to travel abroad that were protect them against death, by terrorist attack. And they were offered insurance that was described as it would cover death of any kind during the trip. And what was interesting is people actually were more likely to purchase the insurance that covered them specifically for terrorist attack, even though by definition,
00:05:49 the other insurance protected them as well by terrorist attack. But because it wasn't called out, they didn't have that fear. And because they didn't have that fear, they didn't make that quick decision. They were actually purchasing the insurance because of fear, not because of any sort of logic we use these kinds of emotional decision-making oftentimes stereotypes that we believe about certain groups are based on these sorts of decision-making morality,
00:06:19 fairness decisions are based off of this kind of decision making. The more familiar something is the more likely we think it's true. The more attractive something is, the more likely we think it is true. All of these things are various versions of this substitution bias. This idea that our mind doesn't like to slow down and spend the time. What's funny. If somebody is good at something we attract,
00:06:52 we ascribed to them. Good at many different things. If they're good at piano, we think that they're a nicer person, even though they may be a total jerk, we have a tendency to see people with a halo based on our limited interactions. This is also part of this decision making. So what can you do about it? I mean, why should you care?
00:07:16 Well, you need to care because the truth is when you make these sorts of knee jerk reactions, when you decide something based on limited information and based on biases, you can, by definition, make decisions that are not as beneficial. And the truth is even knowing that you have this bias, you have a tendency to still exhibit it, even if you're told about it.
00:07:46 And you're told this is a specific example of it, we still have a tendency to show it. All of us do. It's part of the human condition. This is another reason to surround yourself with accountability, to surround yourself with independent decision makers, to surround yourself with people that aren't in the emotional center that you're in. Because as you do that,
00:08:10 those folks begin to be able to help balance some of your decision making. They're able to look at you and say, Hey, I understand, but think about this and that slows you down. And as you slow down, your logical mind can begin to take over. And instead of making a knee jerk decision, based on these simple brain tools, you can begin to really look at the situation and think about the reality of it.
00:08:44 The truth are the falseness of it. Now it's not foolproof. The truth is you're going to exhibit this bias no matter what, but it helps you begin to do. And I've seen this show up time and time again this week when we talked about needs versus wants the decision making we make, there is often based on this kind of thinking. And when we talked about time and the Dunning Kruger effect and planning your day,
00:09:13 again, part of the reason why is because when we talk about time, we have a tendency to use this substitution type thinking instead of slowing down and thinking it through and really being logical, we make snap decisions and move forward too quickly. So the number one thing you can do slow down a little bit in your decision making, not too much, you still want to move forward and you want to do it relatively quickly,
00:09:41 but you don't want to do it with those instantaneous snap decisions if they're subject to bias. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode,
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